Vergne rues lack of consistency

Jean-Eric Vergne says he feels a lack of consistency has cost him the chance to partner Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing next year.

Following the announcement that Mark Webber was to quit the sport to move to sportscars with Porsche, Vergne was mentioned as one of the possible replacements alongside current Toro Rosso team-mate Daniel Ricciardo and Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen.

While Ricciardo and Raikkonen both remain in the frame, Vergne's name appears to have been quietly dropped from the shortlist, with the 23-year-old now more likely to stay with his current team for 2014.

That comes despite the fact that Vergne has scored more points than Ricciardo this season, although he has also failed to finish on four occasions – something he said he felt had been key in him dropping out of contention.

“Red Bull is the world champion team and it needs a driver who is going to score points at every race to win the title,” he was quoted as telling L'Equipe. “If you look at the results this year, I've scored more points than Ricciardo, but he's finished all the races, I haven't.

“I have a label on my back. Even if it's false, in the paddock Ricciardo is seen as consistent and I'm not. The choice is complicated. Horner isn't the only one making the decision. Adrian Newey has a say, as does Dietrich Mateschitz and Helmut Marko.

“I understand the risks they take, hiring a young driver like Daniel or me. And seeing a driver who doesn't finish half his races unsettles them.”

Join
the conversation - Add your comment

Although the administrators and moderators of this website will attempt to keep all objectionable comments off these pages, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the poster, and neither Crash Media Group nor Crash.Net will be held responsible for the content of any message. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. If you find a message objectionable, please contact us and inform us of the problem or use the [report] function next to the offending post. Any message that does not conform with the policy of this service can be edited or removed with immediate effect.

I think everyone is forgetting Ricciardo chews through his tyres in qualifying which means they fall off quicker during the races, the fact that JEV isn't fast enough to get into Q3 often benefits him during the race.
Not to mention the questionable race strategies from Daniels side of the garage.

Richard disagree about race trim comment... with Ric in most tracks he used more tyres in Qual...Both Drivers, for the majority of the season have been on different strats because of Jevs poor quali.....,and there are the variables such as Luck ,traffic, Tyre wear,poor releases,bad pit calls, lockin wheel nuts, mechanical ..,,ect ect...RIC was very unlucky not to bag a lot more points in GB except for losing nearly 6secs in the pits in both stops.....BUt Jev has a few poor releases...and Monaco was hardly racing...BUT way to many variables to use a few points as a benchmark between the two drivers in the Races, as with most of the midfield runners
With Jev and Dan the Benchmark is practice and Quali were both cars roll onto the track the same, and then it comes down to drivers getting the best out of the car with setting up the car balance to suit the track ..driver feedback to the Engineer is very important...a few variables do apply but rarely...
Dan excels over Jev in this area